Last year, KI made a distinction between Season Passes. You could purchase a regular season pass OR a gold pass. This time, looks like they are only selling Gold Season Passes (that's all I could find offered on their website). I'm just curious about the parking. If I flashed my "Gold" Pass last year, I got to park in that "special" gold pass only parking area. Any idea what they are doing for this year?

I have to admit, that Gold Pass Parking area came in handy numerous times last year. Other park visitors who did not have a gold pass were going frantic on crowded days trying to find a parking spot... and many times I was able to just flash my gold pass and find a nice parking spot. A few times the gold pass area was full, but more times than not, that special parking area was great!

Actually, they started the Gold Season Pass program in 2001. In the spring, you can only buy a gold season pass, untill a certain dated, when gold season passes are no longer available. When you buy passes in the fall, you have the option of a normal season pass or, for n extra $5 per pass, you can upgrade to gold. The park will be releasing all the gold pass holder perks soon, probably in the middle of March. (they did last year anyway). You can gaurantee, that the Gold pass parking area will be one of the perks, along with the ert from 9 to ten in the morning. During these early ride times, the lines for ride (especially when in Action Zone) are almost non existant!

Actually the park has alreayd releases the gold pass perks which is available on the Official Kings Island website.

2003 Gold Pass Benifits

Those early ride times were really cool last year. I went every thursday and rode SOB, Face Off, Drop Zone, and Top Gun. Most of the time I marathoned on SOB. The most times I rode in a row was 31.That session took me about until the next week to recover. It was worth it though.

The gold parking area was farther away from the gates than the regular parking. But it was handy having a place to park every time I went there.

Gold pass parking is a lot closer than a lot of places. I'm suprised that Delirium isn't included on any of the early ride times.

Thank you CoasterRZ for the info on how they sell the Gold Passes. When I didn't see the regular passes being sold right now, I thought that maybe KI did away with having the different passes. Thank you so much for clearing that up for me! :-)

Thank you for all the other posts and to FoF for the link!!! I was happy to see the Gold Pass Parking still there, as well as the early ride times and 2 for Tuesdays. I noticed their Bring-A-Friend Free Days was not updated. I went to one of those last year and it was just crazy. Way too crowded. The parking lot was at full and they stopped letting people in. Traffic was backed up in front of the park... people were getting mad and would just drive through the grass to sneak in... ahhhh what fun! Think I might skip Bring A Friend days this year.

I was there when they had people park in the campgrounds it was nuts. Almost every stand in the park broke records though.

If I remember right, that was the day we hit capacity and couldn't take anymore. People were parking in the grass outside the campground, plus the parking lot was filled to the brim. We even had guests park in the associate parking lot, the Sonoco Station, and even our babseball field! I was late for work, so I booked it on foot to Post 3, b/c there was a line that was huge..... (I wasn't driving BTW). It was a bad day for associates and guests, but it was a good day for revenue. Merch and food hit records that hot day.

That day I thought I seen it all.....

~Shadow~

Rides were keeping capacity good too. Beast was an hour and half Son of Beast was an hour and half. I'm guessing that a lot of people were in the water park.

There was. WaterWorks had people almost overflowing into the place. I could of swore there was a line a mile wide outside the Season Pass entrance..

~Shadow~

Are they going to have bring a friend free again this year? The dates are for last year? What are the dates for 2003 if they are going to have it again.

Thanks in advance.

DAYS NOT TO GO TO Kings Island

Sunday, May 12, 2002

Thursday, May 30, 2002

Sunday, June 30, 2002

Tuesday, July 30, 2002

Thank you, have a nice day.

Those are last years dates blondie. What are the dates for 2003 if they are having this again?

The first few items on the Gold pass benefits on the website are actually for 2003, but as you go further down the list it says 2002, maybe they just havent fully updated it yet.

Yea it was crazy on those days, there was even a line for a bench.

When the parking lot was full and they closed it, did they also close the ticket/season pass entrances? Were visitors able to park at other locations and still walk in? I wonder what happened to those people who were at the park earlier in the day and got stamped and left, only to try to return and the parking lot was closed? Bet they were not happy campers...